Delhi becomes world’s most polluted capital

In a recent report released by Greenpeace and data from IQAir AirVisual 2018 World Air Quality Report, Delhi has been called the most polluted capital city in the world. In the same report, it was noted that Gurgaon is the most polluted non-capital city along with 5 other Indian cities.

Burning of garbage is a major source of PM2.5

In the report that was released, the analysts calculated the amount of PM2.5 particulate in the atmosphere over all cities and then compared the empirical data that they received. From this, it was noted that Delhi had a particulate matter of 113.5 micrograms per cubic metre on an average yearly basis. Delhi was followed by Dhaka, which had 97.1micrograms per cubic metre of PM2.5 particulate.

As far as cities are concerned, Gurugram came in first with PM2.5 pollutant at a level of 135.8 micrograms per cubic metre. The pollutant is higher in Gurugram but Delhi was part of the national capitals category, which is why Gurugram took the first spot. Of the six cities with the maximum pollution, five were Indian cities including Ghaziabad, Noida, Faridabad and Bhiwadi.

Economic Times

The report was filed on the basis of data taken from the year 2018 and in some cases, live data was mined in order to get a clearer picture. As far as live AQI is concerned, yesterday, Delhi’s AQI dipped from ‘moderate’ to ‘poor’. The last recorded AQI revealed the quality to be 234 as opposed to 117 that was recorded on Sunday. Owing to this, experts have said that it could lead to a rise in fog that is already prevalent across the city.

Only yesterday, the thick fog and low visibility resulted in over 100 flights being delayed. Of the 100 flights, some were Delhi bound while the others were set to take off from the National Capital. 11 of the flights had to be diverted to take different routes while the others were delayed by at least an hour. Apart from the flights, trains also took a toll because of low visibility and the dense fog that shrouded the city. As many as 10 trains were either cancelled or delayed, causing much inconvenience to commuters.